Posted
by
ScuttleMonkey
on Wednesday January 11, 2006 @06:59PM
from the dispelling-the-news dept.

Slashback tonight brings some corrections, clarifications, and updates to previous Slashdot stories, including a possible release date for the long awaited Optimus keyboard, yet another extension in the Blackberry court case, lakebed theory on Mars possibly all wet, US-CERT statistics perhaps not all they are cracked up to be, stem cell investigation reveals papers were faked, the FTC objects to the Netflix settlement, and a new Crossover Office fixes the WMF exploit among other things. Read on for details.

Optimus keyboard may have a real release date? Jacket writes to tell us that the much talked about Optimus keyboard has a suggestive message on their website. With "Good things come in small packages February 1, 2006" could it be possible that this holy grail (for some) keyboard could be available in our near future?

Yet another delay for Blackberry court case.ahsile writes "TheGlobeandMail.com is reporting that 'NTP Inc., the company suing Research in Motion Ltd over the Blackberry e-mail service, wants more time to respond to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's preliminary rejections of its patents.'

Lakebed theory on Mars all wet?Sensible Clod writes "The Meridiani Planum region on Mars, long believed to have been covered with water millions of years ago, may not have been so wet after all, according to a new study from the University of Colorado at Boulder. From the article: 'The new study indicates chemical signatures in the bedrock, interpreted...as evidence for widespread, intermittent water at Mars' surface, may have instead been created by the reaction of sulfur-bearing steam vapors moving up through volcanic ash deposits. Known as Meridiani Planum, the region may have been more geologically similar to volcanic regions in parts of North America, Hawaii or Europe.'"

Stem cell papers, confirmed fakes. An anonymous reader writes "The committee created to investigate stem cell researcher Hwang Woo Suk has confirmed that his first and second papers were faked. 'dashing hopes that his work is a breakthrough in treatments for diabetes and Parkinson's disease. [...] The panel backed Hwang's claim that he cloned the world's first dog.'"

FTC objects to Netflix settlement.AtariDatacenter writes "Although some question the validity of a recent lawsuit against Netflix, many users were up in arms about the terms of the settlement, which seemed like more of a marketing gimmick. Today, we learned that The Federal Trade Commission agreed, and asked the judge to reject the terms of the settlement."

New Crossover Office fixes,among other things, WMF exploit.ubuntuincleelum writes "Just on the heels of the announcement of new WMF security vulnerabilities Codeweavers is releasing Crossover Office 5.0.1. A bugfix release, this release features a fix for the original WMF bug. Among the changes in this release: Improved support for Gnome, improvements in Debian packaging and improvements in general for operability on Debian and Debian Derivatives."

Its highly unlikely that they will release a product by 1 Feb (a a resonable price , say $500). The price of high res OLED displays (required for each key!) is simple too expensive even now. Maybe we will see that in 2007. Notice that their site does not have a clear release date (which it would to hype up the launch).

It's not for ordinary typing; you don't need dynamic keycaps for that, but for showing shortcuts for whatever app (or game) you happen to be running; or perhaps if you need to switch to different languages. Or maybe you want your "Windows" key tobe a Gnome footprint.

Dynamic. For those of us that type in 3 different alphabets it'd be great (especially when trying to learn the key combos for different accents). Change for games, etc. I usually don't look at the keys when typing in the Latin alphabet either, but I seem to when typing in other ones (and trying to do the changes in my head).

Wow, a whole plethora of companies that photoshop keyboards and produce bogus release dates for vapourware!Having said that, this is vapourware that people genuinely seem to want. I certainly would love one, if it were possible.

Certainly, the finished product would be wildly different from the photoshops we see on the websites.

Can you imagine the power consumption? Not to mention possibly needing a cooling fan (the thing would need some kind of internal processor). The whole thing would generate quite a b

Can you imagine the power consumption? Not to mention possibly needing a cooling fan (the thing would need some kind of internal processor). The whole thing would generate quite a bit of heat, too. This is your keyboard we're talking about! It's hot, noisy, you have to reboot it every now and then, too.

Very funny. I can imagine the power consumption. this OLED screen [epn-online.com] is about as big as I expect the Enter-key on the Optimus will be. The Optimus images show 140 buttons. Even if every button would be as big as

Which means it would also need to hold image information internally. All those pretty pictures for each of the keys needs to be stored somewhere and then processed a little before being sent to the right one of the 140 displays. Just like having 140 video card outputs on your PC. Would the keyboard supply and render the images or would they be pushed through the drivers from the OS of the system the keyboard is plugged into? In which case, I would imagine that a normal PS/2 connector is not going to cut

Has anyone considered the ramifications of the "BLUE KEYBOARD OF DEATH" scenario when Windows halts with a BSOD.

My first serious note is; Why hasn't Apple jumped on this like stink-on-poo. This seems like an item that would be right up their alley.

Second; Depending on the SDK, of course, imagine writing applications that can modify the keyboard based on available program options.

Scenario: Using `less`, the left and right keys are dimmed while the up arrow is red (indicating that you're at the top of the document) and the down arrow is flashing green with a number (indicating the number of rows remain in the document.) As you scroll down, the remaining lines decrease.

My first serious note is; Why hasn't Apple jumped on this like stink-on-poo. This seems like an item that would be right up their alley.

My thoughts exactly. I must admit I'm a bit frustrated that even geeks who like the idea of this keyboard doesn't seem to view it as more than a cute toy. I think it might revolutionize human-computer interaction (I explain this in more detail below). Imagine the new Mac Book Pro with a keyboard like this, and application support in every Apple application...

Scenario: Using `less`, the left and right keys are dimmed while the up arrow is red (indicating that you're at the top of the document) and the down arrow is flashing green with a number (indicating the number of rows remain in the document.) As you scroll down, the remaining lines decrease.

While this is cute (and I would love it), it's not good enough.

Scenario: When you point your mouse at a text-input area (such as the one I'm typing in right now), the keyboard is a regular keyboard with a few cool shortcuts. When you're done typing, and click at the browser area (in which you can't type), it all changes. Suddenly, keys are instead shortcuts to Reload, Back, Home, this type of stuff. The "/" key is a magnifying glass, and when you press it, you get your regular keyboard to indicate that you can enter text to search in the page.

While surfing, the Email-key on your keyboard starts pulsating with an envelope, indicating that new mail has arrived (Biff in your keyboard baby!). You switch focus to your MUA, and the keyboard buttons transform into icons for Reply, Forward, Write new, Next unread message... You reply to the new message, and voilà, there's your regular keys again.

When you're done, the IM key starts blinking... Well, you get my drift.

So, what does this change in your UI? Well, for starters, we can finally get rid of all these space hogging, most often ugly, shortcut tool-/buttonbars. All of this functionality will instead be available in the keyboard. Learning shortcuts in a new application will be a breeze - the first times you're using it, the keys show what they mean, and after a while, you have it in your fingers and can make all keys turn black, effectively cloning the Das Keyboard [daskeyboard.com]...;)

The real action, of course, happens in applications with heavy use of shortcuts, such as Photoshop, Word, Eclipse and other IDEs, and the ruler of them all: Emacs! Imagine pressing Alt, then Meta, then Ctrl... While the keys are updated to reflect their current functionality!

Again, people view this as cute; I view it as a potential user interface revolution in the hands of someone like Apple (or preferably Gnome!).

There are some ergonomic damage issues with this, though. I often spend most of my time typing looking at the screen rather than the keyboard. If my fingerplacing gets really messed up I might peek at the board but that's it. My monitor is usually set up in a position where I can see it without straining my neck.

Spending all day looking down at my keyboard though? That's got to do some damage, right?

Does anyone actually look at their keyboard?? I can't remember the last time I even saw mine! Anyone who seriously uses a computer should be able to touch type, and I don't remember the last time I used an "email shortcut" key or anything like that. In all honesty, I can't even tell you what that key does in Linux at the moment -- I've never pressed it or any of the keys in that row. They're just detritus that I completely ignore. It sounds like your idea would be a neat toy, or maybe a training aide f

Well, I'm sure you are a great touch-typist. I'm pretty good, too. However, I'm talking about the other stuff you're able to use your keyboard for. In Photoshop, for instance, all those keys actually are shortcuts right now, but since most people - even someone like my ex-girlfriend who is a photographer and has spent years in school and work using Photoshop - don't know a fraction of the shortcuts available, they bring the mouse and wander away in the menus.The same thing with me and Eclipse or IntelliJ Id

In Photoshop, for instance, all those keys actually are shortcuts right now, but since most people - even someone like my ex-girlfriend who is a photographer and has spent years in school and work using Photoshop - don't know a fraction of the shortcuts available, they bring the mouse and wander away in the menus.

I don't see how this will help. Have you ever watched somebody new to computing do the "hunt and peck" when they're looking for the 'J' key? Just think, if they can't even see the 'J' key, wh

My scenario using 'less' was just a simple example. I'm right there with you. No more File, Edit, View menus, no more application menus.Key combinations could do all the work, and be intuitive to boot. After learning for a period (by looking), eventually one could touch-type-control any application they use frequently.

I can think of even nifty uses...that are just cute. How about a screenshot/thumbnail of the next desktop or console in the Fx key when you press Alt or Ctrl?

My scenario using 'less' was just a simple example. I'm right there with you. No more File, Edit, View menus, no more application menus.

Well, I think I would like to keep the File, Edit, View menus, but good riddance to the Toolbar (which already is removable in most apps, at least in Gnome).

I like the idea of Biff and IM on the keyboard (although I personally hate IM), this could extend to CRM and ERP systems as well. Workflow that appears on your keyboard. "Ms. Gradenko, why haven't you processed those fo

Hey why not couple it with one of those touch-sensitive screens - then you can type on the screen while watching movies on the keyboard!!

Bah. What a load of self-indulgent shite. Two words, mate. Peak Oil. [lifeaftertheoilcrash.net]

Civilization is right now on the verge of falling apart permanently - and we are at the beginning of a century of global war for the very last of the planet's natural resources if the US gets its way - and here you are still drooling over the ultimate symbol of the very overconsumption that brought us

While the concept is intriguing, what are the mechanics? A quick look at the site didn't answer that question... as a buckling-spring fan I'd reject any keyboard that didn't have my prefered feel, no matter what other bells and whistles it provides.

If you look at the keys, they're 32x32 icons. [artlebedev.com] That's not very high-rez, and those are the concept pictures: the real thing may use 16x16 or less.

Likewise, my understanding was that the larger the display, the more expensive it becomes. This, like chips, is because of the increasing fragility and the increasing likelyhood of a manufacturing defect sending it all to pot. But these are postage-stamp size screens, and as such should be much cheaper.

With an OLED keyboard, you could have animations or live alterations too. Playing a game where your weapons slowly charge... suddenly instead of a "null" icon in the corner you have a big bad bomb icon. Really it could make various interactive tasks a bit more interactive, even in business/etc programs - depending on what you are doing.

Known as Meridiani Planum, the region may have been more geologically similar to volcanic regions in parts of North America, Hawaii or Europe.'"
Which means it bears no similarity to volcanic regions in New Zealand?

If you click on the Answers link on that page for the Optimus keyboard, it says:
It's in the initial stage of production.
We hope it will be released in 2006.
It will cost less than a good mobile phone.
It will be real.
It will be OS-independent (at least it's going to be able to work in some default state with any OS).
It will support any language or layout.
Moscow is the capital of Russia.
Each key could be programmed to produce any sequence.
It will be an open-source keyboard, SDK will be availa

"It seems that Art Lebedev has responded to the Slashdotting that occured to their page about the 'Optimus Keyboard'. They have included a FAQ at the middle-right of the page stating some of the questions that Slashdotters were wondering."

It's in the initial stage of production.

We hope it will be released in 2006.

It will cost less than a good mobile phone.

It will be real.

It will be OS-independent (at least it's going to be able to work in some def

That's actually true. These guys are stuck on the idea of animating the keycaps, not just changing them between static bitmap sets. I personally think the latter is more useful on a keyboard, but these folks are artist. Art-butts think like that.

The new study indicates chemical signatures in the bedrock, interpreted...as evidence for widespread, intermittent water at Mars' surface, may have instead been created by the reaction of sulfur-bearing steam vapors moving up through volcanic ash deposits.

The famed 'blueberries' present in the Martian sediments are concretions. On Earth they only form in the presence of water. They are very widespread in the sedimentary layers of Meridiani. The article gives no alternate explanation. Such concretions are not present in the fumurole-altered sediments of Solfatara Crater. That does not mean the Martian sediments are not volcanoclastic in origin, but the case for water immersion is still strong.

Indeed. The two studies that tried to refute the water theory were in the news weeks ago, and already refuted by Squyres by the time they hit the press. Not that they have to be wrong, but they didn't use all the data available (partly because it was still being released).

"The famed 'blueberries' present in the Martian sediments are concretions. On Earth they only form in the presence of water."

In the laboratory -- i.e., on Earth -- blueberries have also been demonstrated to form in the presence of high-intensity electric arcs -- e.g., lightning. A lightning-strike on Earth releases enough energy (if efficiently employed) to excavate an 85-foot crater, but most of its energy is dissipated in the atmosphere ("boom!"). On Mars there's very little atmosphere to absorb such

Fulgurites will not be perfectly spherical like the blueberries, they tend to be flattened shapes. Nor would they be uniformly distributed in the host rock. Also the blueberries were examinied closely enough to see that they are not made of glass like fugerites. They are mostly hematite. I can't say much about lightning conditions on early Mars, except that lightning is less likely to discharge in a thinner atmosphere. But with all of the particulates flying around in the atmosphere I wouldn't be surprised

Who said anything about "uniformly distributed in the host rock"? Who said anything about "early Mars"? Who said anything about "made of glass"? Zap the soil lying there right on the surface and see what happens. Yes, loose hematite balls.

If lightning is "less likely... in a thinner atmosphere", that means charges build up longer before it discharges, releasing more energy when it does. However, a thinner atmosphere (particles or no) is no inherent limit on lightning. What matters is ionization and

Zap the soil lying there right on the surface and see what happens. Yes, loose hematite balls.

You don't know what your are talking about. Here [menzelphoto.com] is a picture of a Fulgerite. The lighting discharge gives the dendritic tubes cylindrical symetry. They are not spherical. Also the process of annealing does not fractionate hematite from the surrounding rocks. How would a lightning strike do that.

Incidentally, how do you imagine those "particulates flying around in the [wispy] atmosphere" get there -- thunder

Electrical discharges leave a wide variety of residues, depending on details of substrate, subsurface conductivity, current density, temperature reached, and duration. Lightning on Earth tends to one extreme, which produces typical terrestrial fulgarites. On Mars, who knows?

Nobody said anything about current fractionating anything from rocks. When we look at the places where blueberries are found we find nearly pure hematite soil, the natural place to get the material for a hematite spheroid. "Lightni

With those buttons, it's going to be expensive. And everybody how most keyboards are nowadays: after a year or two of intense use, they're ruined. So, this Optimus better have mechanical keyswitches, or even hall effect sensors; or else, it'd be a waste of a good idea.

Are you serious?
I've only ever used old keyboards, like circa 1990. I somehow accumulate them. The only times ive switched are after hitting it (before dumping windows) and another that I got bored of what id written on it.

I don't know how old this Silcon Graphics one is but it has a "YES Netware Approved" sticker on the bottom and I bought it *used* 3 yrs ago. None of the keytops show's the slightest wear, despite all day use sine it arrived.

I could hit burglars with the beast and still keep typing.

even at $400, 2 years is only $4 a week

I'm sure I'd pay $400 for the gee whizzest keyboard in the world, esp. if no other geek in town has one.

The bitches'll be on me like gnats on a dog's dick when I attach mine to my laptop at the WiFi hotspot.

If you want to see a sturdy keyboard, hunt around for an old IBM Model M. While the sound may drive your friends nuts, there is no finer keyboard ever made. You can get these at any computer swap meet or by digging through the junk closet of any data center.

We had a bunch of these at a small ISP I used to work at. The customers would constantly complain over the phone about the annoying "typewriters" in the background. Needless to say, they are very tough keyboards.

It might almost be worth it, assuming it doesn't crap out after a year. I noticed the sample pictures, one showing key mappings for Quake, the other labeled with keyboard shortcuts for photoshop. I can never remember keyboard shortcuts for all the programs I use, so I generally end up sticking to the mouse and the menues. While I'm sure you probably have to set up the key-mappings yourself (someone correct me if that's wrong...that'd be cool), if these got popular enough, I could see some collaboration betw

- A box with a handful of customizable keys that you use in conjunction with a regular keyboard, like the USB numeric keypads some people have.- It will use B&W LCDs instead of colour OLEDS.- It will be twice as thick as the rendered Optimus keyboard.- It will cost $100 or more.- The drivers and configuration software will be flakey.- It will not stand up to a year's worth of regular use.

Seriously, I like the original idea, but it's not practical right now.

Chuck Moore once produced a Forth system with a three-key keyboard. [tuwien.ac.at] Chords were supported, so you could key seven different patterns. That system was an exercise in minimalism; the CPU only had about 4000 transistors, and generated the waveforms for a color TV in software. It was an elegant dead end.

They obviously dont even have a protype worth photographing because all their pictures are CG.

The whole thing makes me suspicious.

It says "It will cost less than a good mobile phone". I really cant see that happening. The displays will cost alot, but the microcontrollers to make this thing be "OS-independent" would put it over $200-$300 alone I think.

"It will most likely use the OLED technology (e-paper is sooo slow)."Its just a keyb

It says "It will cost less than a good mobile phone". I really cant see that happening. The displays will cost alot, but the microcontrollers to make this thing be "OS-independent" would put it over $200-$300 alone I think.

$200 - $300 for a microcontroller? Maybe I'm confused about what you are trying to say but last time I checked, good-enough "microcontrollers" were only about $4 each in bulk. I'm guessing the keyboard is USB, and will just work like a normal USB keyboard if it is connected to a system t

Ummm... Check out Apple.com. They obviously dont even have a protype worth photographing because all their pictures are CG. Oh wait... you can actually buy that stuff right now? Perhaps something is wrong with the logic here...

Moscow is the capital of Russia
dude, these are former soviets...these kind of jokes

Not necessarily a joke -- there are at least seven "Moscow"s in the USA. One might think that the original, oldest, largest one wouldn't require disambiguation, but US newsreaders seem to think, for instance, they need to say "Paris, France" in case viewers think they're talking about Paris, Texas.

Has anyone else noticed that the keyboard layout is almost identical to a Sun Type 6.Those Keys are pretty swank, though I don't really see the point in it, Who looks at the keyboard when they type anyway?

Those Keys are pretty swank, though I don't really see the point in it,

Unless you're learning to type in different kbd layouts, yeah there's not a lot of point to have 100+ keys have little pictures. If it was just the hotkeys on the left, that would be cool, cuz you could program whatever apps you wanted onto it.

There are several applications that use an incredible number of essential [logickeyboard.com]
keyboard shortcuts.

I work at a video editing firm, and every Avid suite has a custom, color-coded keyboard. This sort of thing is very useful in non-typing situations. If it was context-sensitive, and would display the new commands when you go into, say, After Effects, your work would get done faster.

This is for the video editor who switches between Avid and Final Cut Pro. Or the 3d animator who switches b

Some banks now offer a way to generate a temporary credit card number with a reduced credit limit or a shortened expiration time. (MBNA's implementation is called "ShopSafe.") So if you have to supply a credit card number to get a freebie from some company, and they say they'll charge you if you don't cancel, just give them a newly generated card number that expires at the end of the month or that has a credit limit lower than their monthly fee.

After I had some time I checked my collection of old burnt CD's. I found 10 from 96 and 10 were good. I had 3 different brands of CD. While 10 CD's may not be any way statiscally indicative. If the things had an absolute max life of 5 years you owuld have expected at least 1 not to read. I also found a couple from 98,99 and 2000 all good as well. I have to ask what agenda does the guy promulgating the short CD life theory have ?? Is IBM starting to manufacture a new tape drive tech ?

The original stats are not incorrect in the sense that they
do not represent the data.

True. They count as incorrect in that they duplicate
entries in the data.

if a kernel or major package vulnerability affects one distro, it
affects them all (mostly). Do we count a buffer overflow in an
abscure SCSI card driver once, or once per known distro using
that driver?

For a fair comparison, the recent WMF exploit affected all know versions
of Windows at least back to Win95. Do we therefore count it
24+ or

Why? I'm a musician (not professionally), and I can see no use of this keyboard as a musical instrument. Computer keyboards are not pianos (possibly with the exception of those new combo keyboards that Creative is making).
I can see lots of use for this from a composer's point of view, however. You can actually "type out" a composition with this thing (though some software, such as Noteworthy Composer, will let you do this already).

Exactly. Slashdot editors, once again, prove themselves ignorant of the scientific process. If an author writes a paper that gets published, *this does not mean that it is correct*. It means the science is, in general, sound. What comes next is a large amount of debate in the scientific communicaty. The wet Mars hypothesis has a lot going for it (and there's even been new supportive data since then from the MERs), so it won't be easy.Treating some random new paper or two from a couple scientists and ig

That's true; a keyboard like this won't be of much use to someone who only uses a keyboard to type. However, certain applications exploit the keyboard so that the user won't have to move the mouse to choose tools and commands. Two good examples of this are Photoshop and Final Cut Pro. While I don't use FCP, I do use Photoshop and I know that not knowing the keyboard shortcuts really slows me down. It would be nice to be able to see what key to hit to switch tools or even to see what the modifier keys will do to the current tool.

A friend of mine who does use FCP has a neat modified Apple Pro keyboard called the Logic Keyboard that replaces a number of the standard keycaps with color-coded keys labelled with icons from the program. Also, I could see gamers really latching onto this. The more complex games get, the more likely it is that you'll need a richer set of commands which are most easily accessed from the keyboard. Even the picture from the website shows the keyboard relabelled for Doom. If you play a lot of games this would be a godsend.